


Better in Picture

by ardett



Series: Love is a Polaroid [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 18:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6250603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's the Oikawa in the pictures, smiling with fingers raised in victory, launched in the air mid-serve. Formidable, indomitable, the aspiring image of perfection. And behind all that is the blood, sweat and tears that develop the picture in the darkrooms and red lighting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better in Picture

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the lyric from [Polaroid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufegdUMASzM) by Imagine Dragons and apart of Love is a Polaroid, a series of character central drabbles I will eventually finish writing.

Hajime walks up the stairs of Tooru’s house, keys still warm in his hand, molten metal body heat. There’s no cry of welcome or whine of displeasure to proclaim his arrival. Just a dull  _ thud slap thud slap _ echoing down to him, bouncing off wooden walls and worn steps. The keys jingle as he slides them back into his backpack, rustling homework papers on their way down to the bottom depths. Unconsciously, his footsteps start to sync up to the sound.

From the top of the stairs, lamplight dimly silhouettes the dressers and piles of textbooks in Tooru’s room at the end of the hallway. He hears a heave of breath, like a drowning man gasping for air. His feet fall out of step, socks thumping softly against the ground. The noise stops.

His footsteps sound loud in the quiet and the hallway seems to shrink before him, doorway looming like tall trees over his head. As he crosses the threshold, he feels this creeping sense of violation, like suddenly this is all too personal. The room is the same as always; neat and orderly, papers in piles on a desk, handwriting large and curvy across them, mirror on the wall, clothes hung in the closet, a few baubles on an overhead shelf, bedside table with a glass of water and pain medicine, volleyball next to the pillow. Hajime zeros in on that for a second before his eyes flicker to the corner of the room where Tooru’s volleyballs usually are. 

Still, no greeting, no acknowledgement of his existence. Tooru is hunched in his bed, cross legged and bent over a sports magazine. His hair covers his eyes and the shadows make it worse, so Hajime can’t quite make out his face.

“Hey, Oikawa.” He drops his bags on the floor, sitting on the edge of Tooru’s bed.

“Hey.” Tooru responds, curt and short, all in one breath. He doesn’t look up.

Hajime stares but the figure before him is frozen. Tooru’s doesn’t flip the pages, doesn’t turn his head, but his fingers are tapping oddly on the laminate, curling under paper layers. 

_ Is he even breathing? _

Tooru’s chest doesn’t move but Hajime can’t tell if it’s a trick of the light or airy clothes. As he waits in the silence, he hears a slow, gradual inhale. The muscles in Tooru’s arms tighten with his clenched jaw.

“How are you?” Hajime tries experimentally, leaning a little closer.

“F-ine” Tooru’s voice cracks on the word, like something caught in the middle.

The magazine crumples in his hands and his head ducks down further. There’s a heaving intake that hangs between them.

“What’s wrong?” Hajime moves to take the magazine but Tooru yanks back, still avoiding eye contact.

“Nothing, I’m fine.” The words start to fall apart between gasps and breaths.

“You’re clearly not fine, what happened?” He wrests the paper from Tooru’s hands, throwing it to the end of the bed.

“Nothing happened!” Tooru finally looks up at him, glaring tear filled angry eyes. 

“Something obviously happened if you’re crying!” Hajime bares his teeth a little in frustration. “Don’t just lie to me! What happened?”

“Nothing! No one said anything to me, no one did anything to me. It’s just me-” His gaze falls again. The floor suddenly earns his hate. “It’s not that big of a deal anywa-y” His voice breaks and his eyes squeeze shut. Tooru inhales sharply and Hajime feels the air as if caught in his own lungs, tight and painful.

“Tooru...” He whispers to nothingness.

Tooru’s fingers scrabble at his bedside table, latching onto a pencil and piece of paper. His hands shake around the wood but he just scribbles on the pad instead of looking at Hajime, messy marks of hands and balls and fingers. Tooru’s fingers twitch, making the familiar positions of a setter and Hajime realizes he’s still practicing, even while tears start to leak out of his eyes and slip down his nose, even as he sniffles and heaves runny breaths. The paper is dotted with wet spots.

Hajime’s expression creases as he tries to piece Tooru back together. His fingernails snag on the bed sheets. “Tooru, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.” 

“Don’t call me that.” The pencil leaves dark lines of graphite that start to smear onto Tooru’s skin. “I don’t need you here right now. Can’t you just go away?” Tooru’s voice pitches up on the last word and his lips press into a fine line.

Hajime’s chest aches but he doesn’t say Tooru’s name again, even though it rests in the hollow of his throat. “Don’t shut me out.”

“It’s fine, okay? I’m fine. I’m figuring it out.” Tooru’s voice doesn’t crack but wobbles as he finally gives in to the watery wetness streaking his face, talking obstinately through it like his pride is still on the line. There’s this terrible frown though, that gives him away. It digs into the edges of his mouth, dragging it down until his whole face struggles with falling facade.

Tooru crumples up the paper, tearing it in his rush, and starts reaching for the volleyball again. Hajime grabs his hands before they get there, Tooru’s long fingers already curling into an accommodating shape. “Stop, just stop.”

“I need to practice.” Tooru mumbles through his teeth.

“No, you don’t. It’s 11:00, you should go to bed. Get some sleep.”

“I have to get this right before I go to bed.” Tooru tugs at back, knuckles cracking, but Hajime only tightens his hold.

“Get what right?”

“Setter stuff, you wouldn’t understand, Iwa.” He says, shaky smile straining on his face.

“I’ll help you work it out.”

“No, you don’t-” Tooru gives this awful laugh. “Forget it. I don’t need help anyway, especially from you.”

“I can-”

“You can what?” Tooru snarls in Hajime’s face, before his eyes widen, whites shining. He blinks, then settles back into the sheets, shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Iwa. I know what position my fingers are supposed to be in, I know when to do it, I know what height to toss the ball, but I just-” Tooru wrenches his hands back from where they’d been sitting in Hajime’s lax palms, hiding his face in them, wiping tears back with the heels. There’s a growl of frustration emanating from his throat. “I know how to do it. I just  _ can’t _ . I can’t do it.”

“Have you-” Hajime stops himself but not soon enough.

“Practiced enough? Worked at it enough? What do you think I was doing before you got here? Every night before you get here?” Tooru scoffs but his expression immediately falls back to black self loathing.

“That’s not what I was going to say.”

“ _ Don’t just lie to me. _ ” Tooru parrots back viciously and it stings somewhere deep inside Hajime.

They just sit there for a pause, while Hajime struggles to work syllables into sound. The whole time, he hears Tooru’s breaths, trembling in and out of sore lungs, betraying their wearer.

“You don’t have to be perfect; you don’t have to do everything right.” He pleads, “Come on, Oikawa, look at me.”

Tooru shakes his head again, breathing through his fingers. “But I should be able to do this already. Tobio can do it and it’s _ so easy _ . It’s just me that…” Quieter, stuttering and wavering. “I hate crying.”

Hajime finally takes Tooru in his arms, keeping him there even as Tooru stiffens, not moving with hands still covering his face. He can’t quite think of anything else to say but in his silence, Tooru slackens, arms loosening and fingers coming up to dig between Hajime’s shoulder blades. His forehead presses into Hajime’s shoulder. Soft, suppressed noises grow back into heaving sobs that make Tooru shake in his arms. He just hugs him closer until they subside back into tremors and breaths begin to even.

Tooru murmurs, smile small and weak against Hajime’s collarbone, “You make everything worse, you know that?” He draws back, sniffling as he wipes at wet lashes, eyes red. The smile still sits precariously on his lips.

“Tomorrow’s another day.” Hajime whispers, squeezing Tooru’s hand.

“Tomorrow.” Tooru agrees.


End file.
